Saturday, July 19, 2008

Here are three different segments from the 1967 summer replacement Away We Go featuring George Carlin. Away We Go was named after Jackie Gleason's catch phrase as the program was the summer replacement for The Jackie Gleason Show. It was Carlin's first full time television job and he worked as a featured performer and staff writer. When the Gleason program returned in the fall, Carlin was set up easily to make a pair of stand-up performances.

Of all the Mike Douglas clips on YouTube, this one has traditionally been the most viewed. However, the clip has traditionally only appeared as a four minute chunk. This is new to the internets, and it is almost ten minutes.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Robert Klein was considered revolutionary in the seventies. He influenced countless comedians that flooded the onslaught of comedy clubs that started in the seventies and exploded in the eighties. However, Klein was a victim of his own influence. Much of this record sounds old hat now, featuring material that has since been done to death by others (shopping for condoms etc.), but Klein was the first. This record is also notable for being on the BRUT label - yes, the same people who made the cologne.Listen to the whole album - Robert Klein - Child of the 50s.

Maybe the Game Show Network was being clever and running an OTR themed run of What's My Line. Then again, Eve Arden was a television star by this point, but to me, just like Herbert Marshall, she is radio star.

I've never really understood the appeal of Jan Murray and watching this almost unbearable game show just cements the confusion. He seems like the kind of guy who was just in the right place at the right time, when networks needed a lot of bodies to fill the primitive airwaves and almost anybody with some stage experience/presence would do. I'm not sure if this episode bombed terribly or if it's just a sparsely populated studio audience, regardless I find Murray awfully obnoxious. He seemed to get slightly more bearable as he aged, but maybe that's just because he wasn't hosting his own show in the silver haired years. The best part of this thing is the Milton Delugg accordion peppered throughout the show (actually, when Murray is first introduced the music for a moment sounds strikingly similar to Delugg's opening for Broadway Open House with a man who should've been a far bigger star than Murray, one Jerry Lester).

About Me

My long awaited book about comedy will be published by Grove Atlantic in 2015.
Longtime contributor to WFMU and CBC. Cited by Vanity Fair, GQ, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, The Onion, Salon, Slate, Atlantic Monthly, BoingBoing, Comedy Central, Dangerous Minds, WTF with Marc Maron, The New York Times, Vice etc.